For the past bunch of weeks, I’ve been partaking in a very mentally exerting, yet mundane, task…updating the scores and parts for ALL my compositions! With everything being more quiet than usual on the music-front due to the pandemic, it’s a perfect time to do it. And it’s long overdue. Ever since I was a […]

The title is actually a direct question I would appreciate your perspective on. I have had an Instagram account for a while now. But I have never posting anything there. Yet, people are posting performances of my music, often exclusively, there so I feel compelled to be more engaged. Here’s the latest vid, a beautiful […]

When the COVID Pandemic began in earnest earlier this spring here in Toronto, I was inundated with a plethora of postponements, cancellations and uncertainties. I was also concerned for my music colleagues who were almost overnight faced with grave concerns for their livelihood. All I could think of doing to ease my own unease and […]

One of the parts of my music-making that I’m very passionate about is recording. I have been very fortunate in my music career to produce and release 11 albums of my compositions. Collaborating with talented and kind-hearted people is an important part of my life routine. 2020 was destined to be similar to all the […]

My wife and I have been watching Dear White People on Netflix (great show BTW!) One of the characters is a film student in a university. She’s working towards her big final project – producing a documentary. One problem…she has no idea what her documentary is about. But to stay productive, she wanders her campus […]

My collaboration with InConcerto and MusicaOcupa is getting closer. Since I first revealed details about this wonderful project last November, I am so grateful to have secured individual donations and more grants to fund this commission…from the SOCAN Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts. These grants along with support from the Toronto Arts […]

I’m very happy to announce that I have been accepted to do month-long residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity this August! This means a lot to me as I have never done a residency at Banff. In the world of art/classical music, especially in Canada, it’s sort of a rite of passage […]

Yes, I’ve been down this road before of recording a continuous hour-long piano piece. But it has been 10 years since I recorded my first iteration of Earth Hour. Today was the sequel. I’ve been practicing it for a couple of months and I’m happy with how it fits under my fingers. The session for […]

This week, I received wonderful news that I have been awarded a Music Creation Grant from the Toronto Arts Council to fund a commission from the Ecuadorian performance ensemble, InConcerto. The new composition will be premiered in Quito at their annual festival, MusicaOcupa, in June 2020. I’m very excited about this opportunity for a number […]

For the past month, I’ve been walking to my teaching studio at 6:30 every weekday morning to practice piano for 2 hours. The walk, approximately 20min in duration, has been dark and cold. You might think that this would be a very miserable and tedious endeavour. But on the contrary, I can’t remember a previous […]

I have this routine where I listen to a new album each morning as I prep breakfast, do dishes and spend time on social media. Usually I pick albums to listen to from various award and prize lists – in other words, albums that are very critically acclaimed. Friday was unique because instead of listening […]

I feel very grateful to be in Temecula, California attending an artist residency at the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony. The plan was to compose a follow-up to my hour-long piano composition for the dark, Earth Hour. So far, a week into my 3 weeks here, I’ve been composing something else. It’s also an hour-long piece, […]

For the past few weeks, I’ve been very fortunate to sit in on rehearsals for the new musical, Spend Your Kids’ Inheritance. I’ve composed the music for this show. It’s been a part of my life for the past five years. I’m so happy to see it hit an important moment with its world premiere […]

The city and country I call home have become entranced by a game where you put a ball through a basket. And I too have been caught up in the frenzy of the Raptors becoming NBA Champions. On the surface, that doesn’t make much sense…why would a composer of modern art music care about sports? […]